How to Find Off Campus Housing College Rentals for Students

Many college students choose not to stay on campus for a variety of reasons. Dealing with pesky resident assistants (RAs) is no fun, dorm rooms are often low-quality and packed with strangers, and it’s just plain expensive. Finding off campus housing is a task of its own, unfortunately, without help from appropriate sources. Here are five websites to help you find off campus housing, regardless of where you live, what school you attend, what your price range is, and what you’re interested in.

College Rentals

Younger generations tend to use computers, smartphones, and other current Internet-based technologies more than other age groups. As such, it’s super convenient for college students to find housing with College Rentals. This website lets you sift through listings with several different criteria, from whether they allow pets to how cheap their rent is. Regardless of where you plan on living, be it Arizona or Maine, College Rentals has apartment listings of every price — maybe not free listings, sadly enough — size, and reputation for prospective renters to select from.

Craigslist

Craigslist is a popular, established website that features all kinds of stuff, ranging from missed connections to used cars for sale. Craigslist also features homes for sale, facility leases, and — what you’re looking for — off campus housing. Landlords are able to post for free, making it filled with listings all over the nation. Simply look for the Craigslist site in your area (yourcity.Craigslist.org) and search through homes, apartments, and duplexes. Because Craigslist is free and requires landlords and lessees to pay no fees for its services, prospective renters are able to contact them directly through email or phone numbers lessors provide.

This housing intermediary has listings in more than 1,500 college towns and cities in the United States. Uloop places customer service before any other aspect of business, helping upcoming college students looking for off campus housing find homes and apartments they dream about. Other sites practically hang people out to dry, as they have subpar customer service staffs or maybe even no representatives on staff.

Rent.com

This website is undoubtedly the most popular of its kind, and unarguably the easiest to use. Rent.com compiles reviews from across the Internet for prospective lessees to read, features birds-eye views of floor layouts, and even hosts pictures of interiors.

University-sponsored websites

Colleges often want the best for their students. They constantly engage in behaviors meant to retain students and keep their campuses’ reputations high. One study indicates 33 percent of students transfer sometime during their college tenures. As such, universities may keep service dogs in libraries during test time to calm students, hand out free food during finals to boost test scores, and help students find jobs. Look for off campus housing that universities provide or for websites they maintain to find appropriate housing.

These 5 sites will help you find off campus housing that meets your standards. Don’t let even more stress pile on your proverbial plate in college and get housing help with Rent.com, Craigslist, or sites from your university.